This invention relates generally to systems and methods of reminding patients when it is time to take medications and specifically to systems and methods by which prescription information is transmitted to and processed by a data center, and corresponding reminder signals are transmitted to a patient's pager device to remind the patient that it is time to take a dose of the prescribed medication.
Prescription noncompliance is a major problem facing health care today. It has been estimated by health care workers that as many as 50% of prescriptions fail to produce desired results because of improper use. A number of factors contribute to noncompliance. Among them are failure to fill a prescription initially, confusion about proper use, lack of easy-to-understand instructions, apathy, forgetfulness, and intentional noncompliance. The problem is most often observed among patients taking multiple medications, patients taking medications with complicated administration schedules, and patients on long term drug therapy regimens. The elderly account for the largest group of such people. They are thought to have more difficulty with compliance because they more often have numerous medications prescribed, may suffer from cognitive decline, and often have physical limitations such as failing eyesight and hearing which may make compliance more difficult. Noncompliance accounts for numerous nursing home admissions and hospitalizations, as well as emergency room and physician office visits. Patients who are noncompliant may suffer adverse drug reactions, relapse into the chronic or acute disease state for which they were being treated, or suffer a new problem. Each year noncompliance results in extremely high economic costs to the health care system as well as productivity losses among the involved health care providers. Noncompliance also results in loss of time and quality of life for the involved patients and their family members.
If there were a means to remind patients, at regular intervals, of specific medications to be taken, the compliance rate could likely be increased among those patients whose reasons for noncompliance include forgetfulness or inability to understand their medication schedule instructions. If the rate of compliance can be increased, cost savings to the health care system should be realized through fewer hospital and nursing home admissions resulting from subtherapeutic regimens, and fewer office visits because patients' symptoms and outcomes will be better controlled. Third-party insurers are particularly sensitive to the problem of noncompliance because they often cover the cost of the medications and all care which may be required when the patient does not comply with the administration instructions. Government-sponsored payors such as Medicare and Medicaid are also sensitive to the problem of noncompliance. If a service could be developed which helps to increase the scheduled medication compliance rate, patients, health care providers, and insurers would all be better off.
None of the known solutions adequately addresses the need for a simple, flexible, inexpensive system and method to remind patients to take medications at the prescribed times of day.